Ways To Fill the Empty
by infamyxhurts
Summary: Very few things made Sam feel normal, like she had found where she belonged. Neville was always a safe place to her. Neville/OC.
1. Unwound My Existence

**Title: **Ways To Fill the Empty

**Author: **infamyxhurts

**Rating: **PG-13.

**Characters: **Neville Longbottom, Oliver Wood, Fred and George Weasley, Luna Lovegood.

**Pairings: **Neville/OC.

**Warnings: **Possibly triggering situations.

**Summary: **Very few things made Sam feel normal, like she had found where she belonged. Neville was always a safe place to her.

**Author's Note: **My first story on this account! Read and review, if you like this so far, and maybe want a little more. It's hugely appreciated.

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><p>At some point in my life, maybe during the hassle of moving, I decided the changes from here on in would be of my choosing. I'd make the decisions; I couldn't go back and mend the past by fixing the dents and fractures in my parents' relationship. But from then onwards no one else would be my compass.<p>

Easier said than done at seven years old, when other people like to imagine they know better. My mother left for fear, and somehow still passed it off as the right decision, as though running away had become the brave thing to do. My father didn't fight hard enough to keep her, anyway. And my brother, he stayed. That was all I needed to know. Oliver stayed behind in Scotland and I was shuffled onto a plane for the first time in my life, leaving my home behind.

For a while I relished the little choices. Whether I'd have cereal or toast for breakfast; once that decision had been made it was about what would go on my toast, or what kind of cereal I'd have. I was the ruler of my own life. I spent two weeks after the move acclimating, finding a steady rhythm.

Eventually mum enrolled me in a muggle school and my independence quailed. I took instructions from teachers, attempted molding to the expectations of my peers, and did my homework every night. Rebelling earned me detentions and got me grounded, so it became simpler to be passive.

At home, though, I could still be queen. Mum spoiled me for a while, guilty for having uprooting me from my life and bringing me here, to a town called Enid—bloody _Enid_—in Oklahoma, where the other kids at school teased me for my accent, for the thick sound of Scotland on my tongue.

But the gifts and treats didn't last long after the first incident. My brother had been at Hogwarts when we left, a school for witches and wizards, people who were special and bright and capable. I knew that my father was magical, and that my mother wasn't, but up until it started I didn't think I had any of his magic.

The school claimed it was a freak accident and didn't put the blame on me. Toilets in the girl's bathrooms didn't often explode, at least not in such a spectacular manner. The seat rocketed off to imbed itself in the plaster of the ceiling and the cistern had been blasted into tiny bits. Mum knew I'd done it when she came to pick me up from the principal's office and saw my face.

I remember watching her lips purse until they turned white, the colour from the rest of her face then draining as she curtly thanked the principal and dragged me to the car. She was still scared, after all this time. Terrified of something that I loved so much. Magic.

It only got worse when mum met Derek Talley. He was a psychiatrist; middle-aged, still handsome despite the thinning blonde hair and frown lines. His word was law when he was at the house, and my mother stamped out any accidental bouts of magic as ruthlessly as possible. She began to defer to him in matters of disciplining me, and that was the moment when I realized I'd lost my freedom again.

Derek moved in a few months after he and my mother started dating, and a year later they were married. I lost all focus, unwilling to follow other people's demands but not able to make my own anymore.

I spent holidays with my father and brother, where I was encouraged to release my natural energy. My brother had a wand, but he couldn't use it for much away from school, though he did let me hold it a few times. It always felt warm in my hand, like an extension of my arm. Dad read me stories by Beedle the Bard and told me what Hogwarts was like; told me that I'd be a student there one day, though believing him was hard to do when I had to go home and find out all the things that had been coaxed to life had to be smothered again.

Enid became more uncomfortable as the days when past, ill fitting like a too tight sweater. I checked out when I could. My teachers noticed my listlessness as it intensified. I was nine and a half and dozing off in class, disengaged with the lessons, imagining going back to Scotland to hunt gnomes in the garden at home.

Derek had a solution, one he produced with a knowing smile and backed up by the weight of a degree hanging on the wall of his office. Mum kicked me into sessions with my step-father. He still didn't know about magic or Hogwarts or anything, and mum kept nagging at me to keep it under wraps. I said nothing to him during those hour sessions, where I had to sit in the sagging leather armchair and stare at him as he studied me in turn.

He'd scribble in a notepad almost continuously and his writing quickened every time I opened my mouth to say something. It took five of those occasions for him to come up with a diagnosis. Mum held my hand as we sat on the couch at home, waiting for him to announce it, her eyes fixed rapturously on her husband.

I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I didn't like it. I squirmed and wanted to get up and run, hide under my bed and pretend like I had Oliver's wand in my hand.

"Samantha, honey," Derek had started, and I'd bristled all over again at the infuriating pet name he'd picked up on. Only my dad called my honey; but dad had other names for me too, ones that he could fall back on when _honey_ broke under Derek's heavy hand. "You have something called ADD. It's a disorder, but a treatable one. Attention Deficit Disorder." Derek looked at my mother with a wan smile. "There's medication to help her, Allison. I'll make sure she's taken care of."

Mum had burst into tears and stood up in a flurry to hug Derek, clinging to him as she cried. I sat alone on the couch, frowning, unsure what he meant. I didn't feel wrong or disorderly, and medication seemed like too much of an adult word.

They still forced Ritalin down my throat, regardless. I tried to fight them at first, spitting out the little pills, but Derek started to administer them himself each day, and it was harder to pry his hands off my jaw as he held my mouth closed so I'd swallow.

I slept a lot more on the pills, but never again at school. Still, I knew the feeling wasn't right. I took my dosage in the mornings and they smoothed all the edges, until the next morning when I'd wake up and feel jagged.

Things seemed to calm down for my mother. She stopped crying at random moments and took to holding my hand again, as we sat watching television in the evenings or while she helped me with my homework. Derek was the benevolent, ever-constant presence that hovered over me with medication and therapy. He let me see another psychiatrist, this one a woman. She was no less convinced about what my problem was, and after a handful of meetings with her she suggested I join some clubs at school to boost my relationships with the other students. Mum signed me up for all kinds of things; soccer, drama club, the mathletes, all of which I was terrible at. The other kids hated my contributions. I constantly tripped over the ball, I was too nervous to be any help during school productions, and maths was really not my strong point.

The other kids started to notice that I wasn't like them. I'd always known fitting in there was going to be difficult. I'd grown too tall too quickly, stretched out like someone had grabbed my ankles and then the hair on top of my head, and yanked. I had skin that never tanned, even in the summer. My face was long and my teeth were weird. And I had the magic. Maybe they could see it. Either way, they weren't my friends. I had no friends, save my brother, but he was four years older than me and bigger and people liked him better. Oliver was the golden boy; strong, athletic, and ambitious.

The year I started taking the pills, I didn't see him or my dad until it was Christmas, months later.

Dad came to pick me up a week before the twenty-fifth. Mum had given him explicit orders to come to the front door—apparating or Floo'ing was too risky around Derek, who was still clueless as to the existence of witches and wizards. I'd been waiting for the knock to sound all day and when it finally did, I ran to the door. Flinging it open, I launched myself at dad. He braced himself so he wouldn't stumble and caught me in his big arms, warm and comforting, the real deal. Not like Derek, who still called me honey but couldn't seem to look at me without it being an analysis.

"You've gotten bigger, Sammy!" dad exclaimed, his accent perfectly familiar, grunting as he stepped over the threshold and carried me back into the house. I just wanted him to turn around and take me away from there, but he seemed intent on setting me down in the foyer and holding me at arm's length to inspect me. "You're gonna be almost as tall as your brother, I think. Definitely taller than your mum."

"Jonah." Mum's cool voice met the two of us at that moment, as though drawn by her mention. I winced and looked at her with nervous eyes, dad straightening up and giving a slightly forced smile to his ex-wife. He still loved her, I knew, but she'd fallen for Derek and wouldn't be going back to dad.

Dad nodded. "Allison," he said, his eyes softening as they took in the woman's appearance. I used to think she was the most beautiful woman in the world, like she was a princess, but that was before everything. Dad still felt that way, I guess. "You look good."

Stiffening, mum cast a glance over her shoulder, reaching out when Derek came into the foyer. He hooked his arm around my mother's waist, bumping their hips together. Dad merely blinked and laid his hand on my shoulder with a gentle squeeze.

"You must be Jonah," Derek said politely, letting mum go to step forward and hold his hand out to dad. I peered up at my father, wondering what he'd do. I wanted him to roll his eyes and whisk me up into his arms, run away with me, but he merely took Derek's offered hand and gave it a brisk shake. "It's a pleasure to meet you, finally."

"Yeh, you too." Dad's smile was weak and slightly pained. He constricted Derek's hand in his palm for a moment before releasing him, the smaller man covering a flinch and tucking his hand behind his back. A silence passed where mum did nothing but press her fingers to her mouth and dad just looked between her and Derek. After a long wait, he grinned down at me. "Ready to go, bluebell?"

Beaming, I made to dart for the stairs. "I'll get my things!" I called, stomping up the stairs two at a time. In my bedroom I shrugged on my backpack and grabbed the handle of my suitcase, tugging it along cumbersomely behind me. I paused at the top of the stairs to adjust the straps of my backpack, inadvertently hearing a conversation that wasn't supposed to take place.

"Medication?" dad asked, confused and alarmed all of a sudden. "What medication? What for?"

"Oh..." Derek said slowly, his stupid nervous laugh coming out. "I thought you knew. I'm sorry, I assumed Allison had told you."

"Told me what?" demanded dad, his voice rising. I heard mum squeak in barely-concealed terror, and not for the first time I wanted to scowl. Dad wasn't scary. He was brave and wonderful and from a whole other world. Mum didn't understand that; she thought magic was dangerous. "Allison, what the blooming hell does he mean?"

"Jonah, please, you're yelling," mum said, stricken. Dad gave an angry scoff and without thinking about it, a grin leapt unbidden to my lips. This was what I wanted; fire, emotion. Mum was either sad or quiet, and Derek was too smiley. Dad was passion, and after months of being sluggish and slow, this made me feel alive.

"Yellin'?" dad said in an irritated tone of voice. "You've never heard me yell. Not once. What do you mean medication? Is my Sammy sick?"

"_Your_ Sammy," mum said under her breath, derisively.

"Jonah," Derek began, "you do know I'm a psychiatrist, I suppose?" He paused a moment, probably for dad to give a grudging nod or maybe a shrug. I wasn't sure. I left my suitcase behind as I tried sneaking down the stairs, taking the descent one inch at a time until I could just see my dad's back and tensed shoulders. "Your daughter's a very bright girl, and I care very much for Samantha. Allison and I have been doing our best to help her through it, but she has a mental disorder. It's called attention deficit disorder. The medication she's on is specifically designed to help with her focus and keep her from getting distracted, especially at school. Learning is hard for her."

"No it ain't," dad snapped. "She doesn't need any blooming pills. Sammy's a smart kid. Allison, you know she is. She doesn't need any bloody help focusing."

"Don't fight this, Jonah," mum said, tired and strung out now. "She needs to take one pill every morning when she gets up. They're good for her."

"You've lost it," dad muttered darkly. "Blooming muggles. When're you gonna stop trying to fix things with chemicals?"

"Excuse me?" Derek sounded confused. I lowered my foot down to the next step, wanting to see the expression on his face, but my toes slipped off the carpeted edge of the step and I slid down to the one below it, gasping in surprise.

Dad whirled around and saw me, his face turning red as he understood I must've heard some of what they'd been saying. He still managed a grin. "Where's your stuff?" he asked, lifting a thick brow. I blushed and scrambled back up the stairs, grabbing my suitcase and pulling it down. I came to a stop in front of my dad, my eyes sliding sideways to look at mum and Derek.

Mum had her arms folded tight across her chest and Derek was frowning, rubbing my mum's back soothingly. When dad turned to him, gripping my suitcase handle, Derek held out a brown prescription bottle. Dad glared at it but swiped it from his hand, the Ritalin inside clattering around like a death rattle.


	2. Shimmer and Smoke

**Author's Note: **I'm a sucker for a bit of drama. I hope you guys like this chapter as much as I liked writing it. And please review if you have the time!

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><p>It wasn't even that I was a witch that really drove the wedge between my mother and I. It was that I'd tried to hide the confirmation of what I was. My Hogwarts acceptance letter came a month before my eleventh birthday, and I'd swiped it from the rest of the day's mail while mum was fixing breakfast and Derek was reading the morning paper. I'd stuffed the letter under my pillow the moment I'd finished reading it, and that night I drew it out to skim the letter again, doing the same the next morning.<p>

Every word was pivotal to me; every mark on the letter held my future.

_Dear Samantha Wood,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely, _

_Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress_

I even carefully scanned the names of books and supplies I'd need several times, plotting in my mind how I'd go about getting it all, even though it was still the middle of April. The next few days of my life were strange. I felt above it all, above mum and Derek and ADD, because here was what I needed to know; I was magical. I had a place.

It was stupid of me to pore over the letter every free chance I got, but I was greedy and wanted to read it again and again. Halfway through it for what seemed like the hundredth time—and yet it was still fresh and new like I was only just seeing it—mum came bustling into my bedroom with a basket of clean laundry in her arms, balanced against her hip.

"What's that, dear?" mum asked distractedly, looking away as she started to put away my clothes. I sat on the letter, unsure of what else to do, but mum had taken a second look and saw the envelope. Recognition crossed her face like a tide; it swept down over her and she snatched in a shallow breath. Sticking her hand out and flapping her fingers at me impatiently, angrily, she said, "Hand it to me. Now."

"But mum-" I argued, still sitting on the letter, grabbing my pillow and smashing it down in my lap "-it's _mine_."

"Samantha, give me that letter," mum shrilly demanded, dropping the laundry basket at her feet. Her hand flexed and strained as she shoved it in front of my face. I sat perfectly still, staring up at her, blinking away the blurry outlines. A vein was throbbing in her neck. "Give it to me!"

Mum moved so quickly and I wasn't prepared to be knocked aside, pushed off balance. I teetered over but caught myself with my elbow against my mattress, struggling to stop my mother from scrabbling at the letter. She yanked it free from beneath me and held it so tightly the paper crumpled and a corner ripped.

"Mum!" I yelped, jumping to my feet and eyeing the letter like it was the most precious thing in the world. "Mum, don't! You'll ruin it!" I was crying, frustrated tears brimming hot in my eyes. I felt so childish for it, but that letter was my escape.

"Stop it!" mum shrieked. "Your brother got one of these awful letters and now he's as bad as your father! I will not lose you, too. You'll be better off forgetting about this, Samantha."

She hustled from the room with my letter. I followed without a moment's hesitation, in a daze as she went into the kitchen. I watched like a statue as she went to the oven and flicked on one of the gas elements, only just realizing what she was going to do as she lowered the letter towards the blue flame.

"No!" I screamed, darting forwards and throwing myself at my mum, desperately trying to save the letter. She grabbed my arm and dropped the letter on the element where it blackened and burned. Without thinking, unsure if I even felt it, I clawed at the ashes of the letter, hoping to save at least a corner of the parchment from the flames.

"Samantha, oh my god!" Mum was yelling again, and suddenly my hand was thrust under cold water running from the tap, a smell like something cooking filling the air. I blinked, and then came the pain. Mum kept shouting but all I could do was cry and shake, the skin around my fingers and the heel of my palm blistered and red and throbbing white hot. Mum had picked up the phone and was now wailing at someone on the other line. "Please, please. Come home! She needs the doctor! I mean now! Please!"

I laughed. Mum froze, absently lowering the phone from her ear as the sound burbled unwittingly from my lips. I laughed again. Slapping the phone down on the kitchen counter, mum grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face her, giving me a quick and violent jostle.

But still I laughed. I cackled and giggled and snorted, and cried. And then it became nothing but crying, and whatever insane humor had struck me dissolved into horror and I was sobbing with my face pressed against my mum's shirt as she hugged me, rocking me from side to side, murmuring something over and over in my ear that sounded like, "It'll be okay."

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><p>Derek drove me to the emergency room when he got home, twenty minutes after mum called him in a panic. The adrenaline had left my mother pretty quickly, leaving her red-eyed and lethargic. I was still in pain, still too alert, and I needed one of my pills. They would have helped to dull the sting, at least a little. That's what they did.<p>

But I'd already taken my dosage that day, though the sharp shock of the burn had scorched away the methylphenidate in my system. Mum had given me a home brand painkiller, though it did nothing.

I whimpered as Derek pulled the car to a stop in front of the hospital, jostling my aching hand. I had it stuffed in a bucket of melting ice, but it was hard to know which was worse, the heat or the cold.

"Alright, come on," Derek said tenderly, carefully. He got out of the car and shut the driver's side door, coming around to help me out of the passenger's seat. He gripped my good arm and kept me steady as I climbed awkwardly from the car, biting down on my lip to keep myself from crying again.

Derek led me into the hospital and waved a nurse over, the woman giving an affected exhale when she saw my hand, ushering me through to a sterile room down the corridor from the reception area.

"That's a nasty burn," the nurse said when Derek had helped me sit up on one of the hospital beds. The nurse held my wrist as she turned my hand over, the air hitting it and making it throb with the pulse of my boiling blood. The woman side-eyed Derek and then looked at me, bending down slightly at the knees so her eyes were at a level beneath mine and she could look up into my face. "How did this happen, sweetheart?"

"I burned myself," I muttered blankly, staring blankly at the ice in the bucket. When the nurse released my wrist, I slid my hand back into the welcoming cold.

"I'll be right back," the nurse said. "With the doctor, alright? You hang tight." She bustled from the room, leaving me alone with Derek. He sighed and patted my back.

"You gave your mother quite the fright," he said. I nodded, looking at my hand. The skin was red and inflamed, but I had white blisters on my palm. I'd never burned myself before, not to this degree. It was almost fascinating the way my skin had started to bubble like plastic. I retched.

Derek cried out in surprise as I leaned sideways and vomited on the floor at his feet, my stomach lurching in every direction. He managed to jump out of the way and move to my other side, pulling some of my long, straggly hair back as I continued to retch and choke, bringing up the contents of my stomach.

"Sammy!" someone exclaimed. "Oh, Merlin, baby girl are you alright?"

I looked up, wiping the sick from my chin with the back of my good hand. Dad was running into the room, shouldering Derek aside as he reached me. He wrapped one arm around my shoulders, his other hand clutching against the side of my head as he pulled me to him. My cheek came to rest against his abdomen and I let my eyes slide shut, happy now that he was here.

"Jonah, what are you doing here?" Derek was asking. "How on earth did you get here so fast?" He kept talking, but dad wasn't listening to him. He slipped his arm under mine and helped me stand, though I had to lean against him for support as my stomach gave another nauseas roll. He winced at the puddle of vomit on the floor and we stepped around it, Derek on our heels. "Where do you think you're taking her?"

"To a family doctor," dad gritted out from between clenched teeth, helping me hobble along for a while before he apparently lost the struggle with himself and scooped me up into his arms. I thrust my burned hand away from myself in order not to let anything touch it, burrowing against my father as he cradled me.

"Jonah, I can't let you take her," Derek said, shaking his head. He put his hand on my dad's shoulder, but he angrily shrugged it off.

"Go home and tell my wife that Sammy's gonna be fine," dad growled. Derek froze, his expression turning into the same methodical look he got during therapy sessions, something tickling at his mind.

"She's my wife, Jonah," he said quietly, somehow the low quality of his voice making his words sound incredibly loud to my ears, and my dad's. I felt him stiffen, his arms tightening around me.

"Yeh," dad eventually barked, "and Sam's my daughter."

He moved quickly away from Derek, out the hospital doors, and turned on the spot in the parking lot outside. With my eyes closed, I felt Enid disappear behind us, below us, somewhere. I was going home.


End file.
